Thursday, December 21, 2017

On the winter solstice I think about its meaning for our northern climate when the sun rarely companions us. The brooding darkness naturally directs us inward, not a bad thing. This darkest time of the year also begins the ascent to ever more sunshine. It's lovely to anticipate that.

Christmas descends from pagan traditions that celebrated the rebirth of the sun on this day. In the third century, Christian leaders borrowed from them the idea of honoring the birth of the sun with a feast. What evolved was Christmas. Calendar adjustments threw its date off kilter.

Christians call this the Paschal Mystery—death giving birth to new life. May new life grow in peace initiatives in our country and around the world.
Blessed Solstice and Christmas and New Year to all.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

The Supreme Court is hearing a case about religious freedom.
A baker in Colorado refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, but state
law bars discrimination based on race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
Whose sincerely-held beliefs should prevail—those of the baker or gays?
Is the
issue religious freedom or discrimination?

This case addresses the same issue that the court sent back
to lower courts in 2016. The Little Sisters of the Poor did not comply with the
Obama administration’s mandate to provide contraceptive services for their employees.
Their name—Little Sisters of the Poor—made it easy for right-wingers to accuse
Obama of bullying.

My sympathies lie with women employees too poor to pay for
contraception and for whom pregnancy would be disastrous for medical or
economic reasons. The Sisters apparently do not know that moral theologians on
the birth control commission in 1967 advised Paul VI to change church doctrine
banning contraception. The Little Sisters should be educated, not encouraged in
their rigid orthodoxy.

Their case was settled by having the insurance company pay
for contraception and the sisters didn’t have to offer it in their health plan.
But Donald Trump became president, zealous to overturn Obama’s legacy. With
encouragement of his administration, the Little Sisters contend their own religious
freedom is violated because their workers have the freedom to practice birth
control that the Sisters consider immoral. Their argument defies logic.

Another company, Hobby Lobby, claimed religious grounds for
denying coverage for certain types of birth control they consider
abortifacients. The Supreme Court, now right-leaning with the addition of Neil
Gorsuch, ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby. All three women justices dissented
along with Stephen Breyer.

I deplore the triumphal crowing of Catholic bishops over
this decision. From the time the
so-called religious rights issue arose, I have considered the bishops’ naming
of it ironic. What they call “religious freedom” denies others the freedom to
follow their conscience. That the bishops disagree with women’s conscience is
irrelevant. It is not the bishops’ bodies or their finances at stake.

How would this issue have been handled if women had
decision-making power? Or if lay men and women in the Church did? Answers to
these questions clarify our thinking about it. If ultra-right moral police
sincerely want to reduce the number of abortions, they will let women do it
with contraception.

Like the Little Sisters, religious officials want the right
to force their moral judgment on others with different moral views. They claim "the right to discriminate against any class of people" who disagree with them, writes Pat Perriello in National
Catholic Reporter.

Whose sincerely-held beliefs should prevail? All sides were accommodated by having insurance companies pay for birth control. It is no burden
for them because birth costs them more
than preventing conception.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

To mark All Hallows Eve, which celebrates the saints, I am retelling true stories of encounters with saints told by their family members still living in this material world. Our secular world refuses to accept the interpretation I give them. I think they give evidence of spiritual reality—what we call “God.”

But first I want you to know why I've been neglecting this blog. I've been working on my memoir and getting letters published in papers. The latest, supporting gun regulation, appeared on Sunday in the St. Cloud Times.

Now, stories of saints. Mindy's dad passed to the Other Side years ago:

Just recently I was in a terrible dream in which I was in a woods, lost and hungry. I was crying. Suddenly, quite serenely, my dad walked out of the woods, wearing the khaki pants and flannel shirt I remember him wearing. He held out his arms and hugged me. Then we walked into an adjacent room and we danced. It happened to be Father's Day eve! I woke up happy and nothing that day could have changed my happy, calm, peaceful mood, even though the weather was dreary. It's given me pause to think about him and feel his love for me in strong ways I never felt before.

Death is the threshold connecting this material world with the immaterial, spiritual world. About three months after her father’s death, Faye was sitting on her couch, grieving his passing, and thinking, “How can we go on? All the ways he helped us—what will happen now?”

A bright light enveloped her, not like the shining sun, but pulsing. It was beautiful and she immediately felt her dad’s presence. Without hearing words, she felt the message, “All will be well. You are strong.”

She sent a message in return, “We love you. Goodbye.” And it was goodbye. Nothing similar happened again. She knows that this, not his funeral, was the real goodbye.

Cindy contributed her story for my blog:

Mom was very ill with breast cancer and died November 2005. She knew she was dying but wanted absolutely no one to know about it, including her doctor. She dealt with it all alone and in silence. Before Mom died she had some visitors. She told me these stories ten days before she died, and they are shocking to all of us. She said she was lying in bed when Dad, who had died in 1994, lay down next to her.

"Did he say anything?” I asked. “What did you do?"
"He didn't talk, he just lay there. I didn't talk to him either. I just worried about what I was going to make him for breakfast. I had nothing in the house."

Another time she was in bed and at the foot of it stood her father with a very young child. They smiled at her and left. She said he really was there, but she didn't know who the child was. She thought it was a girl because the child was wearing a white long dress. My cousin assured me it was no girl. She is more into the paranormal than I, someone I need to introduce you to someday. She said she was sure Pa brought Mom's older brother to meet her. This almost-two-year-old had died from some childhood disease.

Bob’s mom was an immigrant. Approaching her room in ER, he heard her having a conversation in her childhood language, but when he got to the room, no one was there but she. Several times during the last weeks of her life, she communicated with her deceased sister and other relatives. Asked how that could happen, she said, “They come to me,” and added, “I do not have a fear of death.”

Her doctor said many patients are able to cross over before their bodies finally let go of this life. On one of those last days, Mom saw a shining golden light with angels inside it. “Do you not see that?” she asked.

Bob tried many medical avenues to save her life, and she fought to stay alive for him and his wife. But then he heard her praying to be taken. Two weeks before she died, he had a fruitful conversation with her and said, “It’s OK to go.” His wife noticed that she seemed more at peace after that—her face had lost its anxious look. When she passed, her face became a visage of joy.

Hospice workers tell people to give their loved ones permission to leave, and there are many stories of dying persons waiting until they have that permission, then dying in peace.

One more story, this one by professional writer Linda Marie, after the loss of a valued friend:

It was July and we were planning a get-together for several mutual “city” friends to be held on my deck. I talked to Coleen one morning, firming up the details, and that night she was gone.
One day the next spring, I was leaning on the railing of my deck, just sort of reflecting on the lake and life and nature.
I looked down and saw a turtle climbing out of the lake onto the sand. It was the first one I had seen that year. Thoughts of Coleen, her massive turtle collection and her unusual intrigue for the shelled species came immediately to mind.
The turtle, just a few feet in front of me, stayed very still, with its neck stretched farther out of its shell than I could recall ever seeing, and it was turned directly toward me for—oh—for a very long time . . .

I never tire of stories like these, often told after the death of a loved one. To me they liberate spiritual reality from institutional religion and materialist science.
Although I love them, real encounters fill some people with dread. This must be the reason Halloween evolved with its spooky ghosts and goblins. I enjoy giving candy to the kids at my door, but I wish our secular culture would take seriously the real evidence of the immaterial, spiritual realm.

You can find these and other stories under "Paranormal" in my blog index.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Vern is a musician for Catholic womenpriest Masses whose enthusiastic support of women’s ordination led to this email exchange. It followed a forum after Mass with our Mary Magdalene, First Apostle community.

We chatted
about the phrase, “sacramentally valid but illicit.” And I think I remember you
mentioning that the phrase was not said by any "authority" of the
"regular" Roman Catholic Church. You went further to say the regular
authority will not even discuss it.

I was wrong in saying the official Church does not apply the
phrase to womenpriests, but right in saying the official Church does not allow
womenpriests to administer sacraments.
In other words, womenpriests who say Mass, baptize, officiate at
marriages and the like, make it really happen (it’s valid) but they're not
allowed to do so.

They are like other priests not authorized to act as
priests. One example is a friend of mine, an immigrant from India who is a
married priest. He and his wife have
come to several Mary Magdalene, First Apostle events.

I remember back in the 1990s Pope John Paul II even
ordered discussion [about womenpriests] not only to stop, but also not be
brought up in the first place. His decree was most likely, but not exclusively,
the result of the story of Ludmila of Czechoslovakia becoming globally public
after the fall of USSR Communism.

Why did Vern remember Ludmila? He is a descendent of Czech
immigrants. I went to Google to refresh my memory.

Ludmila Javorová was
the first modern woman Catholic priest. She was secretly ordained in 1970 by a
male Roman Catholic bishop in the underground Czech Church during communism’s
oppressive rule of Czechoslovakia. When Soviet domination ended and Ludmila
Javorová’s ordination was revealed, the Vatican refused to accept it. “Illicit
but valid,” said a Czech archbishop. He based his ruling on Canon Law.

Could you tell me who and from where that phrase first
came from?I am so happy having places like MMFA for me to come and
"rest" my questioning self. Thanks for your help. St. Mary Magdalene Prayers to you
always, Vern

Vern’s modesty is remarkable. I don’t know when Canon Law
first used this ridiculously rationalistic distinction, and I have to admit
that Vern was more knowledgeable about the subject than I was. He led me to
researching it.

Something tells me I heard that phrase, “illicit by
valid,” or something like it came up when all the clergy abuse surfaced. There was a question about the validity of the Sacrament of
Eucharist when Mass was conducted by a priest who abused.

The validity question
also came up in talk about the priest himself confessing, being forgiven, and
then continuing to say Mass. There was also the question of an abusive priest
hearing confession of his victim(s) and the confessions being valid.

Vern had deliberated on “illicit but valid” more deeply than
I had.

I am impatient with the legalistic distinctions, and I'd
guess Pope Francis would agree with me that the Church should instead reach out
with compassion and mercy to all people who cry out for care. The insistence on
official permission violates both conscience and common sense.

Vern agreed that insisting on permission violates
conscience and common sense.

Monday, September 4, 2017

A few days ago, I was in an office at the doctor’s getting a
referral appointment set up, when our conversation turned to a common
phenomenon. The appointment secretary said it often happens to her. She’ll
think about someone she hasn’t thought about for a while, and right then that
person calls. We agreed that it’s uncanny and science can’t explain it. Her
gift appears in more striking ways. She thinks of some event happening, and
then it does.

“I bet you don’t talk about this to just anyone,” I said.

“Some people don’t like to hear about it,” she said, “but I
think it’s pretty neat.”

I think her gift points to many phenomena that cannot be
explained by the physical sciences. It makes scientists who deny the existence
of non-physical reality so uncomfortable that they dismiss the phenomena or
come up with wildly-improbable explanations in pursuit of anything to avoid
admitting that spiritual reality exists.

But they cannot dismiss evidence from their own experiments.

It is hard to give an accurate sense of just how shocked
physicists are by the implications of quantum mechanics, say physicists Bruce
Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner in Quantum
Enigma. They write,

For many physicists, this mystery, the quantum enigma, is
best not talked about. It displays physics’ encounter with consciousness. It’s
the skeleton in our closet.

When I first learned of the observer’s role in wave/particle
experiments, I was flabbergasted too. Immediately I saw the spiritual
implication, which apparently disturbs physicists. A colleague of Rosenblum and
Kuttner objected to their teaching of the enigma.

[P]resenting this material to nonscientists is the
intellectual equivalent of allowing children to play with loaded guns.

I probably am the kind of person that scientist worried
about because I find evidence for non-physical or spiritual reality in this
enigma that Einstein called “spooky.”

Unlike experimentation on other scientific theories, quantum
experiments always—in 100% of
cases—yield the same result. Stated in nonscientific terms, whether a thing is
a wave or a particle depends on the decision of the experimenter. The material
result—whether wave or particle—is produced by the scientist’s choice. The scientist's
thought process, his or her consciousness, causes the outcome.

Scientists who are scientific materialists hate this because
it apparently says that non-physical reality determines physical reality. They
insist there is no non-physical or spiritual reality. I don’t see how they can
skirt this conclusion: Spiritual reality not only exists, it is paramount.

Many physicists try to avoid the issue and just ignore the
“Spooky Interactions” by pursuing practical applications of quantum mechanics
in technology. Rosenblum and Kuttner write,

One-third of our economy involves products based on quantum
mechanics.

But physics’ encounter with consciousness demands the
attention of theoretical physicists, and the quantum enigma, say Rosenblum and
Kuttner, “depends crucially on free will.” They quote this materialist
position:

"You," your joys and sorrows, your memories and your
ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more
than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated
molecules.

Why should cells and molecules give rise to our sense of
identity and free will? The authors of Quantum Enigma ask this and add,

Those of us with common sense are amazed at the resistance
put up by psychologists, physiologists, and philosophers to the obvious reality
of free will.

What follows from accepting our spiritual consciousness may
be even spookier, but I have become comfortable with it. I have come to believe
we create our own reality. The way this plays out is complicated.

It’s not as
easy as doing right instead of wrong, because each of us is part of the
collective consciousness, which contains many, many layers of thought from
multitudes who created the reality we were born into. And each of us has hidden
beliefs, attitudes, expectations, and so on in our consciousness that influence
our decisions. Understanding ourselves takes work.

If you are fascinated by the debate between scientific
materialists and people who accept the reality of the Inner Realm, you can get
more of it by clicking on posts under Scientific Materialism” in my blog index.
And this article by an esteemed scientist may intrigue you.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

I’m coming off a satisfying discussion with a thoughtful atheist friend I’ll call Ben. We’ve known each other for about 30 years but hadn’t seen each other since he moved to take a position far away. We kept communicating. Finally he returned to central Minnesota to visit me and others. What draws us together? We both are in thrall to metaphysical questions.

I do not know a person with more integrity than my atheist friend Ben; I don’t know anyone more principled. I also like him because he and I agree on everything except the biggest questions of existence. We agree on politics and on much about religion.

The morning before our talk, I submitted a letter to National Catholic Reporter in response to a trial Eucharistic Prayer that its author says reflects “the quantum-cosmological-developmental-evolutionary worldview” of today. Its topic was a fitting introduction to the discussion of metaphysical matters that Ben and I had later in the day.

The morning after our pleasant and scintillating talk, I woke up before 4:00 a.m. a little dizzy from a whoosh of thoughts coming in quick succession. Dozens of times I turned on the bedside lamp to write them down. Always I had to turn the light off for the next thought to surface. Interesting, that it took darkness for them to show themselves.

This fact is not irrelevant to the issue crowding my mind, the Inner Realm, which likes to show itself in unobtrusive, hidden ways. Parker Palmer says it’s like looking for wild animals. You have to wait quietly in the woods a while before they show themselves. Darkness and my letting go allowed more messages from that Inner Realm to show themselves.

After talks with Ben, my mind teems with points I want to make in debating him. I hope he would agree that ours is a relationship of mutual respect.

He has moved past the place where atheists I know and read—Ben an exception—stay stuck, railing against institutional religion. Many atheists seem to think the sins of religion prove there is no God. But the wrongs of institutional religions—their stupidity, hypocrisy, corruption, and so on—prove nothing about what's called "God."

It also is pointless to stop at saying, "I don't believe in God," because the question is this: What idea of God do you not believe in? When they profess disbelief, atheists argue against the least elevated God-concept coming from religion. That dumb idea booted me out of religion into the lap of atheism years ago.

No religion owns what is called “God.” It does not take orders from the pope or anyone else.

I admit I also rail at institutional religion, specifically its sexist God-talk. Christian prayers teach Christians to think God is like humans, only more perfect. A speaker on MPR once caught my attention by saying that we can’t say what God is any more than a horse can say what a human mind is.

Male terms for God such as Lord/King/Father/Son-—what I call sexist God-talk because Lady/Mother/Daughter are not accepted—cramp understanding of what is called “God.” Inclusive God-names would broaden understanding. I like these: Source, Creator, Divinity, Spirit, Force, Guide, Love. And mixing up genders, naming the Source both “Mother” and “Father,” would suggest the foolishness of trying to define God.

Ben accepts the fact of consciousness. After all, quantum science makes it irrefutable. But Ben does not interpret consciousness as I do. I see consciousness—our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, attitudes, expectations, and intentions—as evidence of spiritual reality. He doubts there is anything but physical reality.

I take from Teilhard de Chardin the view that there is a within distinct from the without, and Teilhard calls the within “consciousness.”

Ben used to be sure that the physical brain gives rise to thoughts, that physical stuff creates non-physical stuff. Now that quantum science forces physicists to admit that consciousness creates physical reality on the quantum level, he isn’t so sure. To me, the findings of quantum physics evince our spiritual selves.

All our physical actions flow from our mind activity or consciousness. Our consciousness creates our reality. I find support for my opinion in a book by two physicists. I think Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner demonstrates, irrefutably, that consciousness or mind activity creates physical reality. So “Consciousness” is another possible God-name.

Those who share my fascination with these questions are depriving themselves if they don’t study Quantum Enigma. A theologian, Vincent Smiles, recommended the book to me, and an amateur physicist recommended it to Ben, who hasn't read it yet. Because science is not my area of strength, I skip parts that go into torturous (in my view) explanation of how experiments are set up and carried out. “Get to the result!” I say. I’m writing this to encourage others who might be bored or intimidated by science.

When I read Quantum Enigma, when I so much as open the book and reread parts I highlighted, my heart races. It is so exciting!

Science, theology, and philosophy today are moving closer together. They used to repudiate each other; they used to refute each other. Today they converge as science finds evidence for what religions have been pointing to, symbolically, for millennia. The Inner Realm exists in, under, around, and through outer reality.

Mind over Matter, September 4, 2017

A few days ago, I was in an office at the doctor’s getting a referral appointment set up, when our conversation turned to a common phenomenon. The appointment secretary said it often happens to her. She’ll think about someone she hasn’t thought about for a while, and right then that person calls. We agreed that it’s uncanny and science can’t explain it. Her gift appears in more striking ways. She thinks of some event happening, and then it does.

“I bet you don’t talk about this to just anyone,” I said.

“Some people don’t like to hear about it,” she said, “but I think it’s pretty neat.”

I think her gift points to many phenomena that cannot be explained by the physical sciences. It makes scientists who deny the existence of non-physical reality so uncomfortable that they dismiss the phenomena or come up with wildly-improbable explanations in pursuit of anything to avoid admitting that spiritual reality exists.

But they cannot dismiss evidence from their own experiments.

It is hard to give an accurate sense of just how shocked physicists are by the implications of quantum mechanics, say physicists Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner in Quantum Enigma. They write,

For many physicists, this mystery, the quantum enigma, is best not talked about. It displays physics’ encounter with consciousness. It’s the skeleton in our closet.

When I first learned of the observer’s role in wave/particle experiments, I was flabbergasted too. Immediately I saw the spiritual implication, which apparently disturbs physicists. A colleague of Rosenblum and Kuttner objected to their teaching of the enigma.

[P]resenting this material to nonscientists is the intellectual equivalent of allowing children to play with loaded guns.

I probably am the kind of person that scientist worried about because I find evidence for non-physical or spiritual reality in this enigma that Einstein called “spooky.”

Unlike experimentation on other scientific theories, quantum experiments always—in 100% of cases—yield the same result. Stated in nonscientific terms, whether a thing is a wave or a particle depends on the decision of the experimenter. The material result—whether wave or particle—is produced by the scientist’s choice. The scientist's thought process, his or her consciousness, causes the outcome.

Scientists who are scientific materialists hate this because it apparently says that non-physical reality determines physical reality. They insist there is no non-physical or spiritual reality. I don’t see how they can skirt this conclusion: Spiritual reality not only exists, it is paramount.

Many physicists try to avoid the issue and just ignore the “Spooky Interactions” by pursuing practical applications of quantum mechanics in technology. Rosenblum and Kuttner write, "One-third of our economy involves products based on quantum mechanics."

Physics’ encounter with consciousness demands the attention of theoretical physicists, and the quantum enigma, say Rosenblum and Kuttner, “depends crucially on free will.” They quote this materialist position:

"You," your joys and sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.

Why should cells and molecules give rise to our sense of identity and free will? The authors of Quantum Enigma ask this and add,

Those of us with common sense are amazed at the resistance put up by psychologists, physiologists, and philosophers to the obvious reality of free will.

What follows from accepting our spiritual consciousness may be even spookier, but I have become comfortable with it. I have come to believe we create our own reality. The way this plays out is complicated.

It’s not as easy as doing right instead of wrong, because each of us is part of the collective consciousness, which contains many, many layers of thought from multitudes who created the reality we were born into. And each of us has hidden beliefs, attitudes, expectations, and so on in our consciousness that influence our decisions. Understanding ourselves takes work.

If you are fascinated by the debate between scientific materialists and people who accept the reality of the Inner Realm, you can get more of it by clicking on posts under Scientific Materialism” in my blog index. And this article by an esteemed scientist may intrigue you. The Power of Thoughts, August 22, 2017

When I’m working in the kitchen, I’m always listening to
MPR/NPR. My attention waxes and wanes, depending on the fare. One day I focused
sharply on the radio when I detected the talk of a scientific materialist.
Quickly I grabbed paper and pen and wrote down the words of the neuroscientist:

All of our behavior comes from our brain. It’s a matter of
chemistry, not character.

I believe the opposite. Our brains are the physical
counterpart of our minds. They merely register what’s happening in our thoughts.
When the patterns of our thoughts change, our brains change.

Cells and
molecules in our brains do not control our behavior. Our thoughts do.

But what hidden thoughts are directing my life? That’s the
question. Do I believe that I’m safer with people who look like me? That
poverty is more virtuous than wealth? That struggles are holier than success?
That I should always prefer others to myself?

We are not aware of everything in our consciousness. Hidden
beliefs control us.

I first encountered this idea of hidden consciousness
decades ago and have been working with it ever since. It helped me to see
defeating patterns in my life. “Oh no, not that again!” I’d think when the same
challenge would occur with different people. Well, a pattern in my consciousness
was attracting that pattern to my outer life.

When I became aware of the patterns and beliefs pulling
those experiences into my life, I could change outcomes with my thoughts. Easy
to say, not easy to do, but over time I have made surprising improvements in my
life. I keep working on changing the mental patterns that kept me sick and poor
for much of my life.

Chris said... HI Jeanette, Surely you realize that the argument for the claim that quantum mechanics proves idealism is just as questionable as the argument for intelligent design? The vast majority of scientist do not accept either.

Also, as I have said before, your belief that pantheistic philosophies are more intelligent or scientific than classical theism is nothing more than a confessionnal bias. You would do well to re-consider the Angelic Doctor's doctrine of analogy. It would pretty much dispel your objection of too much anthropomorphism in traditional Christianity.

Chris said... Hi Jeanette, As you know, I am certainly not a metaphysical naturalist. But, I'm curious, are you familiar with the debate between Sam Harris and Deepak Chopra? Harris pretty much makes handy work of Chopra's defense of idealism.

Saturday, July 15, 2017

I haven’t blogged because I’m working on my memoir. Asking
for input on rural schools in Stearns County, I received this wonderful
description by Bernadette Weber, OSB.

It will delight some; it might dismay others.

Here is just a snapshot of my grade school life.
Attending District 125 Public Country School was a rich
experience.

Being among 50 students in 8 grades with one teacher helped
us be creative in using our time.
When in the lower and middle grades, I would listen to the
interesting classes of the upper grades.

We had wardrobes
to keep our coats etc. (one for the boys and one for the girls).
When I finished my assigned work, I got to take the first
graders for reading class in the wordrobe. Although I wasn’t aware of it, that
was my first practice teaching.
We also had a
library, so could spend time reading books.

In our school all
the students and the teacher were Catholic. When I think about it, we were like
a parochial school. We had a crucifix in the classroom and had Bible History
classes twice a week and The Baltimore Catechism the other three days.

We probably got
more religion than parochial school students. We also went to religion classes
on Saturdays.
On Sundays the pastor would ask catechism questions from the
pulpit.

We got to participate at the county fair. I remember being
in the exclamatory contest. There were also spelling bees.

Recess time we
usually played with our classmates. The
classes had their sections of the playground in which to play their choice of
games.
Of course, anyone who could play ball did so. The pump for
our drinking water was in the way when we played, so we had to be careful. My
sister, knocked out a tooth bumping into the pump.

At the end of the school term we had a picnic. It wasn’t
just food. We also had races of every kind: running races, sack races, high
jumping., stilt walking.
Name it, we did it. We got our exercise at recess, at
picnics and walking to school. My home was 2 ½ miles from school. Think of it:
a first grader walking 5 miles a day.

Since we were in school with brothers and sisters, we never
tattled. Anyway, with my parents the teacher was always right. Respect for
authority was upheld.

We didn’t call it a wardrobe. We called it “the cloakroom.”
I was pretty old before I figured out why it was called that. I went to the
village school, not a one-room school, but this describes the culture of my
childhood. Our school stood next to the church, priest’s house, and parish
cemetery. We ate lunch in the parish hall.

Nora Luetmer, OSB, wrote a master’s thesis entitled, “The
History of Catholic Education in the Diocese of St. Cloud: 1855-1965.” It shows
that public schools in the county were treated like parochial schools. During
my school days—in the 1950s—it changed.

During my primary grades, the priest came into school to
teach catechism. By my seventh and eighth grades, the public school changed
from just acting Catholic to becoming legally a Catholic parochial school
funded by the parish. Some parishioners couldn’t understand why they should pay
taxes for education twice.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

. . . hundreds of people in
hoodies, heavy coats, and wool blankets braced against the wind. . . . dentists
arriving from five states were getting ready to fix the teeth of the first
1,000 people in line.
. . . better-off Americans spend
over $1 billion each year just to make their teeth a few shades whiter.
Millions of others rely on charity clinics and hospital ERs to treat painful
and neglected teeth. Unable to afford expensive root canals and crowns, many
simply have them pulled.
. . . . . .
She looked at some of the others
who had come here, despite working for a living cutting down trees, building
homes, minding a town library, running small businesses.
“We are not staying home, not
sleeping and living off the government,” she said. She tried not to look at the
51-year-old truck driver lying next to her who’d had three teeth pulled, his
mouth stuffed with gauze. . . . [She said] “It’s like a Third World country.”

(Originally appeared in The Washington
Post)

Something is seriously wrong when
people doing essential work for a society don’t get paid enough for medical
care.

A new idea that might be the best
solution for closing the obscene gap between rich and poor is popping up in
magazines and public discourse. When I first heard of the UBI, I thought, “No
way! Impractical!”

UBI stands for universal basic
income or giving everybody, no matter what work or no work they do, a certain
sum of money.

“I think they call this
"communism," was the reaction from my friend Ron.

On the downside, it would be
expensive and take away the incentive to work. In the May 2017 issue of The
Nation, Peter Barnes advocates a universal base income as distinct from basic
income—only a few hundred dollars a month rather than enough to live on.

It
would cost the government less and pose no threat to the work ethic. If the sum
were low enough, say $10,000 a year, most people would still have to work, but
less likely out of despair or desperation at a job inappropriate for them.

A universal basic or base income
would replace at least some social safety-net programs, making it less
expensive for governments. And more money available to non-rich people would
stimulate the economy by boosting household spending. If funded by taxing
pollution and speculation such as Wall Street transactions, a UBI could help to solve more social problems.

I see implications for peace. It
would reduce stress and friction between classes. Crime could drop
dramatically—another saving for government. If funded by taxing pollution and
speculation such as Wall Street transactions, a UBI could also help to solve
societal problems. In the long run, I believe a UBI would save money besides
immeasurably improving society.

If the UBI is not yet an idea whose
time has come, it’s being tested experimentally. Barnes thinks a UBI could come to pass if enough groups
worked for it. He suggests

millennials (the first generation
earning less than their parents),

on-demand workers or temps,

women,

African Americans,

retirees and near-retired,

and poor of all types. Together
these groups make up a large part of the population.

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Two more priests for the Catholic Church, which laments its shortage of priests, were ordained on Sunday, May 7, in a beautifully uplifting ceremony (more about this next time). Rosemarie Henzler and Maria Annoni would be happy to relieve the severe shortage of priests, but bullheaded, stubborn sexism will not allow it.

Some prominent Catholic women do not support ordination for women because they think it endorses clericalism. Sandra Schneiders is one, as the previous post indicates. When she spoke at Newman Center in St. Cloud, she made fun of women being ordained by likening them to goldfish devoured by sharks.

But the notion that ordained women are subsumed by or unwittingly endorse clericalism was invalidated on Sunday by newly-ordained Rose Henzler. She kindly granted me permission to publish her tribute to her mother.

My mother modeled for me how to persist against injustice in all forms but especially in my church—how to speak truth to power. As she was born in 1901, I’m thinking she probably never heard the phrase “speak truth to power,” but she practiced it.

She was blessed with an amazing mezzo soprano voice, and in 1921 when a young WWI soldier, who happened to be Protestant, heard her singing, it was love at first sight . . . or sound, I guess. When he asked her to marry him and she accepted, there was quite a “kerfluffle” (her word). She was forbidden by her pastor to marry “outside the faith.” He would not allow her to enter into a “mixed marriage!” Nevertheless, she persisted, and on August 19, 1922, he married them in a “hush-hush” ceremony in the church rectory so as “not to give scandal.”

They gave no scandal for the next 49 and a half years!

Soon she was singing not only at Mass and in Catholic weddings and funerals but for her new Protestant family members’ celebrations as well. The word got out and she was called in by the same poor pastor to discuss her egregious behavior. The bishop had instructed him to warn her that she could be excommunicated for her actions.

She answered simply that no matter where she sang, it was (in her own words) “for the honor and glory of God whether it is ‘Ave Maria’ or ‘How Great Thou Art’. I would do more harm than good by saying ‘No’ and I will continue to say ‘Yes’. So let him try it!”
Truth to power.

The threat never materialized and she continued saying “Yes” for the next 65 years and sang whenever and wherever she was asked, and not only for friends and family but when invited for priestly ordinations and even the installation of bishops.

My mother respected the clergy, but she had no time for clericalism, and her reputation for speaking her truth became known in the Archdiocese of St. Paul/ Minneapolis. She became the confidant as well as friend of many in the hierarchy, never hesitating to tell them when she perceived their actions to be less than charitable or loving. It seemed to me as a kid that there was always some priest or monsignor coming unannounced through the back door.

She prayed—always—that perhaps somewhere among her numerous progeny there might be a priest or maybe two. Little could she know that when her prayer was answered, our God of glorious surprises said, it would be her baby girl.

Scroll down to "Women in 4th Gospel" for the reason I enthusiastically endorse Sandra Schneiders’ theology, despite my disagreement on the issue of women’s ordination.

May 18, 2017

Last week I featured Rose
Henzler, one of two new Catholic women priests. Also ordained on May 7 was Maria
Annoni, who experienced young adulthood during the exciting days of Vatican
II. She took to heart its message, “WE are the church.”

At an early age, Maria rejected
the traditional ministry of women—doing the servant-work of cleaning, cooking,
etc. while male ministers took the honors of standing before others and
proclaiming the Word. Maria did not join the altar guild but chose to minister
by using her musical talent.

She spent 30 years as liturgy
director in her music ministry, 21 of these in a Catholic parish, until she was
let go because she had a partner of the same sex, another music minister.
Though heartbroken, Maria persisted.

She earned a Master of Theology degree at St.
John’s University in Collegeville and prepared to become a Roman Catholic woman
priest. Today, she continues to serve in
an Episcopal church as a musician and has her own community, Spirit of
Christ, the Healer, which supported her desire to become a priest.

Maria and Rose, like all Catholic
women priests, experience opposition from Catholic officials. I find this supremely ironic. The very definition of “minister”—to tend
to others, to nurse, to care for—describes the ages-old work of women. Women also excel in building relationships. Many and diverse studies confirm
the tendency of women to seek harmonious connections.
Women are less comfortable with aggression, they notice sooner that someone is
upset, they step in to sooth hurts.

The experience of women in
sensitively managing relationships could enhance the ministry of priesthood,
but women are the very members of the human race barred from it. The gender
that has demonstrated its talent for tending to the needs of others and for
bringing people together is barred from ministry. Those who give birth, who
nourish babies and young ones—Mothers—are barred from ministry.

Those most experienced in ministry are barred from it.

In prehistoric cultures, women
had central roles in religious ceremonies, and She, the bearer of new life, was
imaged Creator of the world. Patriarchy denounced Her as an abomination,
declared God Lord and Father, and excluded women from priestly functions.

Roman Catholic Womenpriestsreturn the Church to standards set by
Jesus and the first Christians. They act as a powerful force for gender justice
and thus justice for all. For a quick read on the case for women’s ordination,
read The Time Is Now.

* Contact me if you'd like a print copy.

SUBLIME SOUNDS May 26

The ordination of Catholic women in Minnesota on May 7 began with a stunning interruption of murmurs in the expectant congregation. Sublime sounds of a single vocalist quieted us with an exquisite performance of Bobby McFerrin’s 23rd Psalm. Its inclusive God-language filled my soul as much as the beautiful sounds.

She restores my soul, She rights my wrongs,
She leads me in a path of good things,
And fills my heart with songs.

The vocalist, I learned, was Catherine Fierro, professional singer and daughter of Rose Henzler, one of the newly-ordained. Cate’s daughters also sang during the Mass.

This psalm was only the beginning of musical treats. Maria Annoni, the other newly-ordained priest, informed me about the music director, Beth Kaiser:

Fellow musician, friend, and collaborator on many things liturgical, Beth coordinated musicians from the Grand Rapids area, Duluth, the Twin Cities, Elk River, and the St. Cloud area. She pulled all these gifted people together to make one sound—and what a sound it is.

I have had the privilege of working with all of the Duluth musicians (singers and instrumentalists) for various liturgies throughout the past 20+ years.

There is no place I would have rather been than with this very special gathering of music ministers and serve as music director for such a joyous occasion. And, the assembly... wow! How wonderful to hear them raise the rafters in song. THIS is what liturgy is supposed to do. Liturgy is SUNG PRAYER. And, I believe this is what we experienced, fully.

Gender-neutral language in womanpriest Masses always refreshes me because I suffer from lord-talk in typical liturgies. It is a relief to hear, “Creator . . . Holy One . . . God, our Mother and Father.”

Bishop Nancy Meyer opened with the sign of the Cross,

We gather joyfully for this ordination in the name of God, Source of Being, Eternal Word and Holy Spirit.

At most Masses, I find particularly annoying the recitation at Communion,

Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,
but only say the word and soul shall be healed.

It returns Catholics to the unhealthy attitude of the past when self-contempt was encouraged. At womanpriest Masses congregants recite,

Jesus, you make us worthy to receive you.
By your word we are healed.

Despite their significance as boosters of justice for women, womanpriest ceremonies are attended by few young people. Gray heads prevail. It does not distress me, because I believe we are entering a new spiritual paradigm. Young people in tune with the emerging paradigm move to non-traditional ways of satisfying their spiritual needs. Who are we to say our way is better?

The Lord is my Shepard, I have all
I need
She makes me lie down in green
meadows
Beside the still waters, She will
lead

She restores my soul, She rights my
wrongs
She leads me in a path of good
things
And fills my heart with songs

Even though I walk, through a dark
and dreary land
There is nothing that can shake me
She has said She won't forsake me
I'm in her hand

She sets a table before me, in the
presence of my foes
She anoints my head with oil
And my cup overflows

Surely, surely goodness and
kindness will follow me
All the days of my life
And I will live in her house
Forever, forever and ever

Glory be to our Mother, and
Daughter
And to the Holy of Holies
As it was in the beginning, is now
and ever shall be
World, without end Amen

Several You-Tube renditions are available. I link you to the
one that leads to more Bobby McFerrin treats following the psalm. The video should lead to or you can link to the Bach-Guonod Ave Maria with McFerrin. I’d heard it before, never seen it before. It’s
enchanting.

And THEN go on to more Bobby McFerrin videos. You should be
able to just let it run or click links on the right. Notice how McFerrin
combines music with bodily antics and adjusts his speech for his audience,
depending on his venue. It’s impossible to avoid smiling.

I connect personally to the Bach-Guonod Ave Maria. My
talented brother Arnold, who became Fr. Al, taught me to sing it as a solo for
a grade school performance. He wrote the words from memory while admitting he
wasn’t sure of their placement in the music. When I mentally sing along during
a performance of it, I notice the discrepancies between their lyrics and the
version he taught me.

Back to music at the ordination.

One of my favorites at every ordination is the litany
because it allows the congregation to sing harmony. Musicians Terry Utter and
Vern Bartos of our woman-priest community, Mary Magdalene, First Apostle, led
it.

Vern tells us about the other opportunity for the
congregation to harmonize:

The three daughters [of Catherine Fierro, therefore
granddaughters of Rose Henzler] started the song, Veni Sante Spiritus, and then
we as choir came in with four part voices which gave the song a
"mantra" sound and coloration.
Then towards the end, the choir began to fade out and the
three ended the song with us very quietly in the background. As I recall, at
one point the three daughters also sang at least two-part voice.

Yes, it was a beautifully put-together music menu for the
double ordination.

Monday, March 27, 2017

A provocative series is airing on PBS: “Bible’s Buried
Secrets.” The most subversive segment, “Did God have a wife?” (video) captured the most attention from me. I wondered
whether it would spill intoxicating information I have garnered over years of
doing feminist research.

“Did God have a wife?” did not seem feminist to me during
most of the hour, although its female scholar, Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou,
reaches for provocation. Her main point is that common perceptions about the
Bible and God as taught by the Judaeo/Christian tradition are upended by
archaeological finds. They show that Hebrew ancestors of the Jews did not
practice monotheism. Jews also did not invent monotheism, but that point was less
clear in the documentary.

For hundreds of thousands of years, what is called God was a
woman. She had many different names, but She was not rivaled by males. They
were her consorts, not her superiors. The Great Mother gave life, and what we
would call “genealogies” centered on mothers, not fathers. This information is
missing in the documentary, which gives prominence to Baal and El, male Gods.

But now I’ll look at virtues of “Did God have a wife?” Its
photos of archaeological digs and figurines found in them excited me. I am a
strong proponent of educating people, and what better way to do it than a TV
program? I’d never before seen figurines of Baal, El, and Asherah—they were
fascinating.

Dr. Stavrakopoulou directs our attention to symbols surrounding
Asherah on figurines of Her found in digs. They display Her life-giving
powers—prominent breasts and sacred pubic triangle. These were revered by ancient cultures. She birthed new
life; She was the tree of life; She was the one saying, “Be fruitful and
multiply,” not a lord.

When patriarchy conquered mother-centered cultures, sacred
life-giving power was stolen from the Divine Feminine and given to a male
God-image—the Lord. In a similar patriarchal do-over, the Greeks stole Her
life-giving power by having Zeus manage a kind of birth (more complete story below).

Asherah’s image was accompanied by a branch with leaves representing
Nature. At shrines, wooden poles or trees representing Asherah were held
sacred. Most biblical references to Asherah—40 of them—are obscured by
references to these “sacred poles.” The Lord orders them destroyed, as in
Deuteronomy 7:5 and 12:2-3:

Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, destroy by fire
their sacred poles and shatter the idols of their gods that you may stamp out
the remembrance of them in any such place.

Anyone who researches this will run into the term “cult objects,” a
clear sign that our whole culture, academia included, is governed by
Christocentrism. Do we talk about a chalice or a priest’s stole as cult
objects?

Jesus of Nazareth was not ruled by the patriarchal mindset, but the
religion that grew up in his memory was. Christian churches denigrated female
bodies and blamed females for all evil. Sexist statements by Church “Fathers”
are well-known:

Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a
woman.
(Clement of Alexandria)
You are the devil’s gateway. You first plucked the forbidden fruit . .
. It was you who destroyed the image of God, man.
(Tertullian)
Woman does not possess the image of God in herself …
(Augustine of Hippo)

Today, the female body held sacred by prehistoric cultures suffers a
different kind of desecration. Today, the bodies of females are playthings of
men. Few things annoy me more than that public baring of breasts to feed babies
is forbidden, while public display of breasts to titillate men is encouraged.

The most impressive part of “Did God have a wife?” was its analysis of
Dt 33: 3. The words in question are totally hidden in my NAB translation, but
not in my RSV translation. Moses is blessing the Israelites before his death
and says he saw “the Lord” and "at his right, a host of his own."

Dr. Stavrakopoulou shows us the Hebrew letters usually translated “his
host,” which makes no sense, and explains that it is reasonable to suspect they
should be translated "his Asherah." Another reference to "Yahweh
and his Asherah" was found on a shard of pottery excavated in another
archaeological dig. This my research had uncovered before. In other words, we
know that ancient people revered Yahweh and Asherah as husband and wife.

Knowing the history of patriarchal distortions in scripture makes “the
Lord” language hateful to me. Its oppressive stamp increased when in 2005 the
Vatican overthrew the translation by experts in liturgy who had labored long to
produce language beautiful and meaningful. Instead, the Vatican imposed clunky,
domineering Lord-talk. It forbids inclusive God-talk, for instance, praying to
“Our Mother.”

For this reason, listening to Mass language is always a trial. I can
stand it because the atmosphere in Sacred Heart Chapel, the lofty dome and
pillars, the music, the reverence and spiritual depth of the religious
community, uplift me. When I sit in that place, good thoughts come.

The way we imagine what’s called God makes a huge difference in human
relationships. I hope information like that given here will gradually sink into
the minds of more people. Right now, I resolve to do more educating on this
topic, but I keep being distracted by political events.

**
One person replied,"Oh, pul-leeeze." I'm sure he knows this but I thought I'd better add it: If it's ridiculous to think of God having a wife, isn't it just as ridiculous to pray to an exclusively male God? This is the point.

April 3, 2017

Two comments by email concern me. Apparently, I didn’t make myself clear to every reader in my last post. I assumed all my readers would know that it's ridiculous to think of God having a gender. The spiritual principal we call "God" CREATED gender. It could not possible BE one of the genders. I shouldn’t have, but did, take for granted that readers would connect the dots I didn’t spell out.

The ancient Hebrews, whose writings were edited and turned into the Bible, had the same problem we have— consistently, always, exclusively, hearing God referred to as a lord. They never heard references to Her as the life-giver, the Source of all that is. As a consequence of Yahweh being imagined exclusively male, “He” was given a wife in Hebrew imagination. This unintended consequence indicates the pathology of male-only God-talk.

We have to distinguish between what’s called “God” and God-images. A male-only God-image diminished human understanding of Divinity for the ancients and continues doing it today. Further, it deformed human relationships then and does so now by utterly devaluing the feminine.

The Lord of the Hebrew Bible, what Christians call “the Old Testament,” not only condones rape but orders it when he commands genocide, euphemistically called a “ban” or “dooming” in our Bibles. Often the Lord explicitly orders the Hebrews to save the virgins of the conquered people for use by themselves. Examples of the ban are found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, and Joshua.

As for today, can anyone doubt the connection between the Western Lord God and gender abuse? There are more slaves today than at any time in human history. Besides big profits made from human trafficking and illegal brothels (victimizing boys, too), untold numbers of women toil at backbreaking labor to feed their children while the men who impregnated them give orders, make the decisions, and relax.

This is observed regularly by global aid organizations such as Heifer International and micro-lending NGOs. The reach of predatory patriarchy abetted by sexist God-talk encompasses the entire globe.

***********

The contact buttons at this site and http://www.godisnot3guys.com had not been working well, but that’s been fixed now. So click on one of the contact buttons to reach me if you don’t know my email address and don’t want to comment online.

My friend Marilyn in Phoenix, the same one who nagged me into blogging again, extracted from me a promise to announce that my directors at St. Cloud State U. acknowledged my retirement from supervising student teachers. There was a cake—that sealed it for me. This part time adjunct position started in January of 2000. I think I’m better at it now as I’m finishing. Isn’t that the way of things? We’ve mastered something and then it’s time to move on.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Since the election I have been veering back and forth between fighting despair and being the one to console others near despair. I counted ten Trump appointments of persons apparently committed to destroying the departments they should manage. They threaten justice, labor, money policies, environment, education, energy, commerce, housing, and health care.

We are on the cusp of change coming from chaos. I fear the center cannot hold.

William Butler Yeats, a poet of yesteryear, has a poem for our time:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Looking for hope, I had a talk with a mentor/friend of mine who would hesitate to call herself a psychic, but significant images come to her. I was not surprised to hear an optimistic message from her. Twice she saw the image of the sun rising—right before the election and right after. The sun was farther over the horizon after the election of Donald Trump.

Her interpretation of the images:

The recent images just before and after the election are saying we have reached the tipping point and the light will begin to be on the ascendant. I realize it sure doesn't look like that at the moment.

There is a lot of inertia. Doing a mass 180-degree turnaround "socially, or culturally" is like turning around the biggest ship imaginable. As an analogy, the engines have been put in reverse to slow the ship down enough so it can gradually be turned in the opposite direction.

Among all the influences and feedback we've been getting for decades, Trump's election seems to be the final weight that is tipping the balance. He is apparently "the straw that will break the camel's back." Seen from within the culture at the moment, it sure looks like chaos.

"The center cannot hold.” From my perspective, the center is already rotten to the core. Trump is just bringing it into very bold, can't-be-missed, focus. Every single person, wittingly or (mostly) unwittingly, is complicit to some degree in the present situation.

Every thought we think, every belief we act on, every single purchase we make, every interaction we have—with another person, animal, plant, institution, whatever –is a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.

Look at the food people buy: fake food loaded with harmful chemicals, devoid of minerals and nutrition to keep them healthy. Meat from animals who are treated horribly, and loaded with body-destroying chemicals. A vote for industrial agriculture.

Then, when sick, there are lots of votes for a medical system that only treats symptoms, not causes. A vote for the pharmaceutical industry, which turns out drugs at a prodigious rate that they know can make you sicker.
The voting goes on and on in every moment of your life. And it all has resulted in the present world situation.

We've all had our input on both the light and dark sides. Now we are almost forced to become conscious of our daily votes and start making wiser choices.

I cannot believe we are headed for doom. Our country is strong enough to survive a Trump presidency. I take heart from the promise of the images.
Comment:

Steve Applegate commented:

This was written around the time of World War
I, when everything in society seemed to be engulfed in chaos. We survived then
and will survive again.

February 11, 2017

Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade has relevance to Trumpism:

Myths of classical Greece show how the male-centered invaders
who conquered female-centered societies thousands of years earlier also
conquered minds. In the earliest Greek myths, Hera reigns supreme as the Queen
of Heaven. In the male system, she becomes the jealous wife of the all-powerful
thunder-god Zeus. Greek religion even grants Zeus a power unique to women. The
goddess Athena springs fully-formed from his head; he fathers a daughter
without the help of any mother!

Greek drama of the fifth century B.C.E. deserves our
respect for its artistic value, but it also deserves our criticism for its
anti-feminine values, as illustrated in the Oresteia,
a trilogy by Aeschylus.

Stripped of its artistry, the plot in brief repels us.
Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia. To avenge his crime, Clytemnestra,
wife of Agamemnon and mother of Iphigenia, kills Agamemnon. Then their son
Orestes avenges that act by killing his mother Clytemnestra.

Orestes is brought to trial and absolved for murdering his
mother. On what grounds? The god Apollo argues that a mother is not truly a
parent, only a vessel to nourish the father’s seed. He points to Athena,
saying, “There can be a father without any mother.” Athena agrees that only
fathers are related to their children. Expropriation of female power is
complete.

Can there be a more effective victory over feminine values?
Christian myth copied it.

But today, the power of the Father/Son myth is waning. This
monumental change is evidenced by the “nones,” the 25 percent, and growing, of
U.S. society non-affiliated with religion. Other phenomena signaling the shift
are frequent messages of love and acceptance in public discourse and growing
rejection of capital punishment.
A large signal of a major shift is the uproar surrounding
Donald Trump.

His choices to head departments and agencies designed to
protect health care, housing, economic security, clean energy, fair access to
technology, voting rights, a safe environment, and mutual respect have histories
of undermining the very institutions they will now head.

When Trump rolled out the names, I looked for the source of
the force behind Donald Trump, who doesn’t have the brains or the ultra-right
inclination. All Trump gets out of dismantling protections is the
celebrity-attention of being Disrupter-in-Chief. Who’s the driver behind the
scene? I thought Mike Pence.

It is Steve Bannon. White America first, sexism, racism,
Islamophobia, homophobia, militarism—all espoused by Bannon and consistent with the values of warrior tribes that overtook
peaceful, woman-centered civilizations thousands of years before Jesus of
Nazareth lived.

Bannon, who is Catholic,allies with Vatican hardliners who oppose Pope Francis' more
compassionate approach to church doctrine. Bannon sees the world in a
fundamental clash of civilizations—Islam versus Christianity—and the “church
militant” needs to actively fight “this new barbarity,” he says. He is livid
with zeal.

When a system is dying, resistance to the shift toward an unfamiliar
paradigm flares dramatically. Bannon’s opposition to Pope Francis perfectly
illustrates this. Our country is being ruled by the extreme ideology of Steve
Bannon and the emotionally-damaged Donald Trump. But there is hope. The blazing show of Donald Trump/Steve Bannon signals patriarchy in demise.

"Intelligence Squared" debates pit four debaters against
each other, two on each side. The debate over the proposition,“Give Trump a Chance,”reinforced my
feeling that we stand at a crisis point that will generate massive changes.
Only one debater defended Trump. The other debater on the side of giving Trump
a chance argued that our institutions are strong enough to resist Trump’s
destructive policies and those who voted for him need time to reconsider their
vote.

I
didn’t care which side of the debate won; I wanted to hear debaters argue to
give or not give Donald Trump a chance as a way of gauging whether our society
is choosing cooperation and partnership over domination and competition.

How
much resistance is building to the Trump administration’s stance against others and over others? That even the debater who argued to give Trump a
chance recognized the destructiveness of his policies assures me that
stereotypically-feminine values indeed are surging.

I am
not arguing for feminine qualities to overtake masculine qualities and reign
alone. We need masculine strength, independence, and confidence. We need
balance, and this has been missing for
millennia, ever since warrior tribes invaded and conquered matrilineal
societies during the fifth and fourth millennia B.C.E., and replaced their
peaceful, egalitarian cultures with warlike, hierarchical ones.

More next time.

January 31, 2017

I write this to offer hope, as an anti-peace, anti-human-rights, anti-environment agenda seems to rule the U.S. Hope can grow when we place current events in a larger context. Looking at the broad scope of human history assures me that, whatever consequences we suffer from a broken political system today, events over the long term are moving toward a gentler, more equitable world order. We can’t know how much time it will take, but focusing on the broad perspective reassures me.

The distinguished anthropologist Ashley Montagu called Riane Eisler’s work, The Chalice and the Blade“the most important book since Darwin’s Origin of Species."

Eisler identifies domination and aggression (the blade of the Father) as patriarchy’s model for ordering society. She shows that partnership and nurturing (the Chalice of the Mother) endured as a countervailing power throughout human history, even during the fiercest patriarchal times. It prevailed as the model to structure social systems during the Paleolithic and early Neolithic ages:

In sharp contrast to later art, . . . Neolithic art [contains no] imagery idealizing armed might, cruelty, and violence-based power . . . no images of “noble warriors” or scenes of battles . . . no signs of “heroic conquerors” . . .
What we do find everywhere—in shrines and houses, on wall paintings, in the decorative motifs on vases, in sculptures . . . is a rich array of symbols from nature . . . wavy forms called meanders (which symbolized flowing waters) . . . serpents and butterflies (symbols of metamorphosis) . . .
And everywhere—in murals, statues, and votive figurines—we find images of the Goddess, . . . the divine Mother cradling her divine child in her arms. . . .
the Goddess, whose body is the divine Chalice containing the miracle of birth and the power to transform death into life through the mysterious cyclical regeneration of nature.

This prehistoric civilization was woman-centered but not matriarchal. Women did not dominate; they were not superiors in a pecking order but had status as birth-givers. Excavations of Paleolithic and Neolithic societies bring into view feminine figures, symbols, and activities that occupy a central place in art, in buildings, and in villages.

Patriarchy with its dominating subordination of women took over the peaceful societies and, over the course of many centuries, replaced pre-patriarchal honoring of birth and regeneration with a militaristic, male-centered framework.

Eisler includes influential thinkers in her far-reaching synthesis.

Nietzsche’s philosophy, under which the “noble and powerful . . . may act toward persons of a lower rank just as they please,” is the forerunner of modern fascism. . . .
Nietzsche’s ideal moral order was a world . . . ruled by men who say, “I like that, I take it for my own,” who know how to “keep hold of a woman and punish and overthrow insolence,” and to whom the weak “willingly submit . . . and naturally belong.”

A present-day political figure comes to mind.

Nietzsche despised the Judeo-Christian tradition as not androcratic [male-dominated] enough because it contained what he called an “effeminate” “slave-morality”; ideas like “selflessness,” “charity,” “benevolence,” and “neighborly love.”

The Christian tradition’s embrace of these values is uneven, but Jesus of Nazareth did not preach domination, says Eisler.

He rejected the dogma that high-ranking men—in Jesus’ day, priests, nobles, rich men, and kings—are the favorites of God. He mingled freely with women, thus openly rejecting the male-supremacist norms of his time.
. . . time and time again we find that . . . [Jesus preached] the gospel of partnership society. And in sharp contrast to the views of later Christian sages, . . . Jesus did not preach the ultimate dominator message: that women are spiritually inferior to men.

Eisler refutes the belief common among atheists and agnostics that there never was a historical Jesus with the “compelling argument” that Jesus modeled feminine values.

Today the dominator model is breaking down, asserts Eisler. Stereotypically-masculine traits like tough leadership and fighting, often with violence, is giving way to the stereotypically-feminine virtues of compassion, cooperation, gentleness, and partnership. The pendulum is swinging back. Taking the long view with Riane Eisler, we can see feminine attitudes slowly taking hold today, as in ancient history they were slowly supplanted by male dominance.

I take hope from the breakdown of dominator values happening today. Yes, it’s long and slow, but boosting a change in attitudes is the weirdness of Donald Trump. The whole world seems repulsed by it, the final straw, as my friend predicted (see “New Year hope despite chaos” above).

Respect for standing over and against others (the patriarchal Father) is lessening, while respect for loving and accepting all (the nurturing Mother) is growing. My hope surges when I see growing numbers of manly men endorsing the shift to feminine values.

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In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet says, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” This is a two-edged challenge. It invites believers to rethink their dogmas, and it challenges people without faith to rethink their certainty that everything religious is bunk.